You know you've arrived when professors start thinking about how to look after you during a major emergency. As a vegan, I was thrilled to read in the Times this week that Professor Tim Lang, a professor of food policy, has told the government that us meat-dodgers must be catered for in any 'food apocalypse'.
Speaking at the Hay Festival, Lang said that if a cyber attack or military strike from Russia destroyed Britain's 'vulnerable' food chain, the contents of ration packs would need to bring comfort to a shaken public. We'd all be 'in psychological shock', he explained, so we'd need to have food that we're 'familiar and comfortable with'. In the face of 'explosions' and 'energy outages' he wouldn't want vegans to 'have to eat meat'. Well, if mushroom burgers are on the menu as the mushroom cloud goes up, then I'm feeling better about Armageddon already.
Lang's remarks are just the latest step in veganism's move to the mainstream.